Digital Arts class launches next week
Apr 14th
.
.
Spring is a time for flowers, sunshine, developer conferences and DigiArts!
DigiArts is a time to explore programming and tinkering. We might take apart a broken scanner. We might build a game in StarLogo TNG. We might make a stop-motion film.
Class time will be divided between direct instruction/presentations and free exploration. There may be a couple of field trips that will extend the school day until 4:30pm.
To get a sense of the offering, check out last year’s DigiArts blog, created by 8 students from the 7th and 8th grade.
- Students will plan specific projects and work independently towards completion with regular teacher check-ins.
- Students are responsible for regularly documenting progress on the 2010 Digital Arts blog, with writing, photos and/or video.
- Students are expected to share their work with classmates and the school community.
- We will not be playing with alternating currents, messing with networks or other people (but Rick-rolling is okay).
Because this class is limited to 10 students, you are required to apply. Interested students should send Jac answers to the following (complete sentences where appropriate):
1. Why do you want to be in this class?
2. What are some project ideas you might be interested in working on?
3. With great power comes great _________________.
4. AYBABTU – explain.
Independent Project Spotlight: Jamal
Apr 13th
In conjunction with a month-long language arts identity writing project, 7th grade students have chosen independent creative projects to support their words. These projects have taken on a variety of forms, all sharing personal experience through vision, sound or touch.
Jamal taught himself to use Garageband to create an original rap about his life and how it has shaped his identity. Judge the results for yourself:
Google Apps for Edu updates
Apr 12th
Teachers, 7th and 8th grade students use Google Apps for Edu daily to collaborate, present, capture information, and express creativity. Google just announced an upgrade to the system with some great new features that will help us be more productive. Watch the official video for more information:
iPad a great Spring Break, thank you
Apr 9th
This blog post is spoken directly into Dragon Dictation. I am Using the iPad microphone to capture my voice and the app to convert my words into written text.
Dragon Dictation (available for iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch) is a free application and it could be a useful tool for students and adults find it difficult to begin writing but are comfortable sharing ideas verbally. To use the app, you need to be connected via wifi or 3G.
7th Grade in Central Washington
Mar 31st
This week students will be rafting, rock-climbing, hiking, meeting with union workers and immigrant farmers, cooking and learning about the history of Washington state.
Just because 7th graders are in the field doesn’t mean they aren’t experiencing technology. Students are using cameras to document their experience, and we used a map to plot out our week-long journey. Click on an icon to learn more about each location:
Also, a few photos have been sent home via MMS (cell phone multi-media messaging service):
The girls at their Tuesday campsite.
Passover Seder meal.
Independent Project Spotlight: Kelly
Mar 25th
Kelly just taught herself to use Pivot, a free stick-figure animator. Enjoy her first extended project, “The Fall.”
Data control
Mar 24th
One day the way we surf the web will be different – Gary Flake gives us an example of how we’ll experience content. You can even download Pivot (not the stickfigure animator) right now, if you have Windows 7 installed.
Independent Project Spotlight: Thomas
Mar 19th
6th grade student Thomas recently finished an interactive animation using Scratch, a free application that introduces programming. Use the space bar to begin and the arrow keys to interact with this cool creation:
Top 100 websites
Mar 18th
Some people love to make lists. It can be fun to rank and compare things, but today the 7th grade talked about information graphics: ways to represent data that take advantage of the human ability to compare visuals without having to think to hard about what they mean.
As an example, we took a look at a beautiful new visual representation of the top 100 websites, organized by popularity and category. How many can you guess before visiting the BBC News site to check out the results?
Aviary addition to Google Apps for Edu
Mar 12th
Billings 7th and 8th graders use Google Apps for Edu regularly to communicate with peers and faculty. The Calendar service allows us to keep track of athletics, trips and community events. Docs provides free document and spreadsheet editing and publishing. Sites are used for student, faculty and class homepages.
Today we added a new service to the Google suite: Aviary. Aviary is an online editing suite for sound recording, graphics and vectors. 7th grade students spent Tech this week playing with the new tools – creating custom t-shirt designs, remixing beats and mocking up album covers for an iCLAST identity project.
Our mission: to figure out if these tools are intuitive enough and robust enough to use regularly. While these online offerings aren’t as powerful as their software counterparts (Photoshop, Garageband, Illustrator), they are free and accessible from home/school/library/anywhere with an internet connection.
So far so good, we’ll keep testing and report our findings in future posts.
Billings students: to access Aviary, log in to Google Apps. In the top left corner you’ll see “Documents Calendar Sites more.” Select “more” and then “Aviary” from the dropdown list. Enjoy.
